It’s the time of year for solar observing again, and there was a nice active disk yesterday in both H alpha and white light.

Here’s an image taken by the method I’ve been using for a couple of years now, using the DMK 41 camera in combination with the Lunt LS60 double-stacked to take an image in two parts and stitch it together. On this occasion I used DoubleTake for the Mac to do the stitching and balancing, and it does a good job.

Taken in mid-afternoon in warm conditions (27C), seeing was poor. (Click to enlarge)

This is an LRGB image with the L from a light pollution filter, but it is rather undersaturated as the data is dominated by the luminance; true RGB from such a light-polluted environment as I work in is probably impossible. It was taken over three nights.

The comet was slightly closer to M31, and now clear of the spiky tree. M31’s companion galaxies also show up here. You can see the atmospheric dispersion effect in the star images near the horizon. This image is oriented along the horizon, unlike the last one, to give a better framing.

The seeing looked steady visually on this occasion, but on-screen it was rippling very fast at a small scale (not surprising for 27º altitude). Three sequences of RGB were captured, and all combined for a 14 minute run, interspersed with IR captures. This is the first image I have produced using the PierroAstro dispersion corrector in the imaging train.

There’s no evidence of any spots, though Encke’s division is faintly apparent.

Tonight I finally obtained an image of C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), after all these cloudy evenings. There was a gap in the cloud for about 30 minutes which I exploited. The comet is going behind a nearby fir tree during the course of the exposures, obscuring the frame on the right hand side.

Slightly later I observed it visually from an upstairs window using 10×50 binoculars, but it was only just visible in those, looking much fainter and more diffuse than when I last saw it on March 14. (Click to enlarge)